With this year’s General Assembly making it illegal to drive and hold a cellphone, motorists will be looking for alternatives.

A Virginia Tech study just released indicates hands-free is a safer alternative.

“Call Anne Deekens”

For two years, the Tech Transportation Institute used videos and sensors to monitor 3500 drivers, “Ninety percent of the information you get from driving is visual and wherever you’re looking that’s the only thing you can process.”

Tom Dingus is Director of the Transportation Institute, “If you are taking your eyes off the road to text or dial or browse, can increase your risk anywhere from two to six or seven times.”

He says they equipped people’s own cars, collected over one million hours of material that included 905 crashes and in most cases, they were looking elsewhere.